Posted on 03/31/2007 8:56:20 PM PDT by GMMAC
Will auld acquaintance be forgot as Scots go it alone?
30 years ago Gordon Brown was the toast of student radicals in Edinburgh. Now he is seen as part of the Establishment — and out of touch with the Scotland’s new direction.
Martin Fletcher
timesonline.co.uk
March 31, 2007
In 1974 Gordon Brown was Rector of Edinburgh University, elected after a campaign that featured the “Brown Sugars” — girls sporting miniskirts and T-shirts emblazoned “Gordon for Me”.
I was a first-year student, and remember him as a striking figure with long black hair and trenchcoat, surrounded by acolytes. He was intense and ambitious, but he also lived with Princess Margarita of Romania, threw celebrated parties and enjoyed an almost glamorous reputation.
As editor of Student, besides filling the pages with bare flesh, his great scoop was to catch the university lying about its investments in apartheid South Africa. He used the rectorship — traditionally a ceremonial post — to flay a fusty university establishment. When Sir Michael Swann, the principal, sought to stop him chairing meetings of the University Court, the Duke of Edinburgh, the university’s chancellor, intervened: Princess Margarita was the Duke’s goddaughter.
While the young firebrand was shaking up Edinburgh, another movement was shaking up Scotland. Buoyed by the discovery of North Sea oil, the Scottish Nationalist Party won 11 Westminster seats that October, and forced Harold Wilson’s weak and panicky Labour Government to concede a referendum on devolution in 1979 that only narrowly failed.
Three decades on, Mr Brown will shortly become my prime minister, not rector, and the SNP is surging again. A poll for The Times this week suggested that the party was heading for a victory in the Scottish Parliament elections on May 3, paving the way for a referendum on independence by 2010. But today it is Mr Brown who represents an unpopular Establishment in distant London, Mr Brown who looks out of step with Scottish public opinion, and Mr Brown who faces the prospect — albeit remote — of finding himself prime minister of a foreign country. How the wheel has turned.
Back in the 1970s Edinburgh was an austere place that even the Bay City Rollers struggled to enliven. Pubs shut at 10pm and never opened on Sundays. Staid life assurance companies pottered along in genteel Charlotte Square. The economy was wretched. The city felt cut off from the world. It was an uncomfortable place to be an English student. The Scottish nationalism of those days was angry, confrontational and fiercely antiEnglish, as summed up by the SNP slogan: “It’s Scotland’s oil”.
The theatrical sensation of 1974 was John McGrath’s play The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, which charted the exploitation of Scotland from the 19th-century Highland clearances to the plundering of North Sea oil. English students were resented, and regularly told that we were taking Scottish students’ places.
Today, behind its immutable granite face, Edinburgh is a city transformed. It is cosmopolitan and fun. Dismal bars and corner shops selling that peculiarly disgusting Scottish invention, the bridie, have been replaced by fancy pubs and classy alfresco restaurants. The Grassmarket, Seventies refuge of down-and-outs, is now hip. The breweries, whose sickly smell blanketed the city, have gone. You hear foreign accents everywhere, and can fly directly to Europe and America without changing in London.
Edinburgh has become Europe’s fifth biggest financial centre, employing 135,000 people. The Royal Bank of Scotland is a world top-ten bank with a market capitalisation larger than Coca-Cola. Elegant New Town houses sell for a million or two.
Gavin Don, a Scot who returned from London to set up a corporate finance business in 1994, says that as an Edinburgh student in the 1970s he used to play Porsche-spotting. “You could go a whole year and not see one. Now they are two a penny. Bentleys are pretty commonplace, and Rolls-Royces are not unheard of.” There is a cultural revival, too. The Scottish executive is pouring money into the arts. The bestselling authors Iain Rankin, Iain Banks, Alexander McCall Smith, Irvine Welsh and J.K. Rowling all live in or near the city. Its once-proud publishing industry is booming again.
Where Edinburgh leads, the rest of Scotland is slowly following. The country still has pockets of intense poverty, but its unemployment rate has fallen below the UK average, its per capita GDP is higher than most English regions, and two decades of steady population decline have been reversed.
As self-confidence has risen so the nature of Scottish nationalism has changed. It is more positive, less Anglophobic. It emphasises future potential, not past grievances. It asks merely for Scotland to be liberated so it can prosper within the European Union like a dozen other countries as small or smaller. Indeed, the EU allows Scotland to break away from England without condemning itself to isolation on Europe’s northern fringe.
Alex Salmond, the SNP’s wily leader, is still demanding the repatriation of North Sea oil revenues and the removal of nuclear missiles from the Clyde. But as he seeks to portray his party as mainstream, not extreme, he emphasises a desire for cooperation not confrontation with Westminster, and avoids overt England-bashing. He says an independent Scotland would keep the Queen and the pound.
In St Andrew Square I asked a dozen Scots to sum up the English in one word. The answers were not flattering — “pompous”, “egotistical”, “smug”, “arrogant”, “loud”, “pig-headed”. But they were given with smiles, and for all the tales of Scots backing Trinidad and Tobago against England in the football World Cup their antipathy to sassenachs appears more muted. Indeed, Flower of Scotland, the unofficial national anthem, which was written for The Corries in 1967 and celebrates England’s defeat at Bannockburn, seems a little out of tune with the times. “People are a tad embarrassed by it,” one veteran Scottish journalist said.
What has undoubtedly weakened, however, is the Scots’ sense of Britishness. Three hundred years after the Act of Union England and Scotland no longer have a common enemy in France. The British Empire, on which Scotland’s 19th-century prosperity was built, has gone. Memories of Scottish soldiers fighting alongside the English in two world wars have faded. Scottish industries such as shipbuilding and coal that depended on London subsidies have been privatised or closed. Margaret Thatcher’s use of socialist Scotland as a test-bed for hated policies such as the poll tax fuelled Scottish disenchantment with Westminster.
A recent British Social Attitudes Survey found four fifths of Scots consider themselves Scottish first and British second. The Scottish Saltire, flown only by a few wild-eyed radicals in the 1970s, is everywhere in Edinburgh, and the Union Jack has largely disappeared. It does fly outside The Scotsman newspaper — but only at the insistence of Andrew Neil, its former editor-in-chief.
At the same time the much-derided Scottish Parliament, which the Scot George Robertson, a former Defence Secretary, said would kill separatism “stone dead”, appears merely to have fostered a sense of Scottishness. It receives more coverage than Westminster in the Scottish media and The Times poll this week showed 52 per cent of Scots want it to have more power, only 7 per cent less.
The other great change since the 1970s is England’s attitude to Scottish independence. Polls suggest that an idea unthinkable then is today quite popular.
Many English resent Scots receiving £1,500 more per capita in public spending each year, and that the Government requires the support of Scottish MPs to ram through controversial legislation such as university top-up fees and foundation hospitals that do not apply north of the border. They are offended by Scotland’s perceived Anglophobia. The English have yet to back Roger Federer against Andy Murray, but my equally unscientific survey of a dozen English colleagues produced adjectives about the Scots just as unflattering — “difficult”, “chippy”, “aggressive”, “ungrateful”, “angry”, “brooding”.
Few minded if Scotland broke away. As the Saltire flies in Scotland, so the flag of St George has become increasingly common in England. It is as if the Union Jack, like the UK, is breaking down into its constituent parts.
All this leaves Mr Brown in a hole. As a Scot preparing to move into No 10 he needs to reassure the English, and has delivered no fewer than ten speeches or statements on the importance of Britishness since late 2004. He opposes further devolution. The Raith Rovers fan even cited Paul Gascoigne’s goal against Scotland in Euro 96 as a favourite football moment.
But the more Mr Brown champions Britishness, the more out of touch he looks in Scotland — and the more he fuels his compatriots’ disaffection with Labour before next month’s elections.
Scots dislike Tony Blair, whom they consider neo-Thatcherite. They hate his war in Iraq. Today’s equivalent of The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil is The Black Watch, which tells of Scottish soldiers going to fight a pointless war foisted on them by an English Prime Minister. Mr Brown is widely seen in Scotland as the Iraq war’s paymaster.
In Edinburgh in the Seventies, Mr Brown wrote his doctoral thesis on how Labour established itself as the alternative to the Conservatives in Scotland in the early 20th century. Its battle now is to prevent itself being usurped by the SNP.
The stakes are enormous. Were Scotland to gain independence Labour — shorn of its 39 Scottish MPs — would never win power in England again.
Nationalists head for power
–– A Populus poll for The Times this week put the SNP ahead of Labour in both the first-past-the-post and proportional-representation sections
–– The Nationalists are on track to win 50 seats in the 129-seat Scottish Parliament, seven more than Labour. The Lib Dems would have 18 MSPs, the Conservatives 17 and the Greens one
–– A majority of Scots (52 per cent) are in favour of more devolved powers for their Parliament. Just over one in four (27 per cent) backed full independence
–– On the constituency or first-past-the-post vote, the SNP is on 38 per cent; Labour 28; Lib Dems 15; Tories 14; others 6 In the proportional representation section, the SNP is on 35 per cent; Labour 30; Lib Dems 14; Tories 14
Source: www.populuslimited.com
My friend, getting presents from posh public schoolboys born in Zimbabwe, pretending to be a Clan leader has as much cultural validity as wearing clogs in Holland or believing the English all wear bowler hats.
As for the racial slurs - lets clear this once and for all. Do you believe the American/Canadians of Scottish descent are genetically superior to Scots in Scotland? Yes or No?
Thanks, have you too noticed that he has tried to deflect the whole thread to something in his imagination, rather than what it was about?
His anti-Englishness is also shocking (I am not English), but worse is his ignorance on the relationship between Scotland, England and Britain as a whole.
It has also disturbed me that he thinks those who are of Scottish descent in North America are the genetically superior people compared to modern Scots who he hates. I think it’s because he is trying to hold onto an identity that never was. If he doesn’t who is he? His identity is what we call in Scotland of the “shortbread tin” variety. Bagpipes, kilts and regular watchings of Braveheart. LOL
25 years of experience running a Scottish store here in the US has been very enlightening as to how Americans view we Scots. Many knowledgeable folks, but many "Brigadoons" as well!
Slainte!
"Britain fought for two years against tyranny alone"
which quite plainly omits any acknowledgment whatsoever of the sacrifices of all the nations - not just Canada - who stood allied with Britain between 1939 & 1941.
Further, your other ignorant & disparaging comments, particularly to & about FRiend candor7, go along way to more than confirming my initial premise.
Just so everyone knows, Candor7 did reply to this post, but it has been pulled by the mods.
To Jack,
I have to assume you came to FR to pick fights.
So far, so good.
BTW, what’s your DU name?
I know there is a Graham here and in my time I’ve known both Campbells and Drummnds.
Thinking of my G-G-Grandmother Graham I remember the following. :
From the greed of the Campbells,
From the ire of the Drummonds,
From the pride of the Grahams,
From the wind of the Murrays,
Good Lord deliver us!
I swear there’s definitely a Murray here.
Maybe two. :)
They will have to find other places to troll their bait, because the fish here are no longer biting.
This will be my last comment on the matter.
It has taken on a more personal meaning to me though....
While debating the point that it wasn't just Britain that stood alone,
posters have mention some of the commonwealth nations that stood with her
but none have mentioned the Dominion of Newfoundland as being an early participant.
She declared war on Germany Sept 4/39.
Here's a small bit from Wikipedia about her invovlement.
Fearing that a German invasion of Newfoundland could be used as a prelude to an attack on Canada, in 1940 Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and Newfoundland Governor Sir Humphrey T. Walwyn entered into negotiations regarding the strengthening of defense positions along the Newfoundland coast. Notwithstanding their separate political identity, the defense of Newfoundland and the Newfoundland Home Guard armed forces were integrated with the Canada military and both governments agreed to the formation of a joint coastal defense battery. As part of the Anglo-American Lend Lease agreement, the United States was granted military air and naval bases on Newfoundland territory at Argentia, Stephenville and St John's.My dad, who served, passed away in 2001.Newfoundlanders were encouraged to enlist in the forces of the United Kingdom and Canada. The Royal Navy enlisted some 3500 from the Newfoundland Naval Reserve of those whom Churchill called, "the best small boat sailors in the world." The Royal Artillery raised two regiments, the 57th (later 166th) Newfoundland Field Regiment which saw action in North Africa and Italy and 59th Newfoundland Heavy Artillery which began service as coastal artillery unit in England and later participated in the campaigns in Normandy and northwestern Europe. Another 700 Newfoundlanders served in the Royal Air Force, most notably with the 125th Newfoundland Squadron.
In all some 15,000 Newfoundlanders saw active service and thousands more were engaged in the hazardous work of the Merchant Navy. Some 900 Newfoundlanders (including at least 257 merchant mariners) lost their lives in the conflict and over 100 Newfoundland civilians were killed in the sinking of the SS Caribou by a German U-boat.
Newfoundland was the only location in North America to be subject to direct attack by German forces in World War II when German U-boats attacked four allied ore carriers and the loading pier at Bell Island. The carriers S.S. Saganaga and the S.S. Lord Strathcona were sunk by U 513 on September 5, 1942, while the S.S. Rosecastle and P.L.M. 27 were sunk by U 518 on November 2, 1942 with the loss of 69 lives.
and found my Dad....
| 216781 | Tilley, Samuel W. | Round Harbour, Notre Dame Bay |
I can't tell you how happy this had made me...I miss him alot.
The first number in the listing is his service#
and should help me further my investigation.
He was extremely skilful with horses, and could get them to do anything he wanted. The family myth is that he was a horse whisperer.Therefore he was assigned to be an ambulance driver with a team of horses and an ambulance carriage. He survived because the horses trusted him and obeyed his directions during the noise and clamor of battle, and they did not panic.
Maybe you might find some documents on your dad at:
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/index-e.html
I do not know if they encompass the Newfoundland data base before 1949. Perhaps there is a British data base that would have Samuel's info.
Curiously , I have been to Round Harbor on Notre Dame bay, having lived several years in the Gander Area in the late 1970s. I really liked the people, mostly fisher folk, kind and generous to everyone.
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